represented almost to as late a date as the former. Finally, by a process of natural transition very similar to that by which the sacred and supernatural characters of the religious drama had been converted into the allegorical personifications of the moralplays, these last, gradually becoming less and less vague and shadowy, at length, about the middle of the sixteenth century, boldly assumed life and reality, giving birth to the first examples of regular tragedy and comedy. Both moral-plays, however, and even the more ancient miracleplays, continued to be occasionally performed down to the very end of the sixteenth century. One of the last dramatic representations at which Elizabeth was present, was a moral-play, entitled The Contention between Liberality and Prodigality, which was performed before her majesty in 1600, or 1601. This production was printed in 1602, and was probably written not long before that time it has been said to have been the joint production of Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene, the last of whom died in 1592. The only three manuscripts of the Chester miracle-plays now extant were written in 1600, 1604, and 1607, most probably while the plays still continued to be acted. There is evidence that the ancient annual miracle-plays were acted at Tewkesbury at least till 1585, at Coventry till 1591, at Newcastle till 1598, and at Kendal down even to the year 1603.† *By Edward Phillips, in his Theatrum Poetarum, 1675. The Towneley Mysteries (so called after the MS. containing them, formerly belonging to Mr. P. Towneley), which are supposed to have been acted at Widkirk Abbey in Yorkshire, have been printed for the Surtees Society, under the care of the Rev. Joseph Hunter and J. Stevenson, Esq., 8vo. Newcastle, 1831; the Coventry Mysteries, under the care of J. O. Halliwell, Esq., for the Shakespeare Society, 8vo. Lond. 1841; and the Chester Mysteries, for the same Society, under the care of Thomas Wright, Esq., vol. i. 8vo. Lond. 1843, and vol. ii. 1847. See also Mr. Wright's Early Mysteries, and other Latin Poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 8vo. Lond. 1838. Mr. Collier, in a note to his Hist. of Eng. Dram. Poetry, ii. 123, 124, observes, that, although miracle-plays were at a very early date called Mysteries in France, and the term has been adopted by Warton, Percy, Hawkins, Malone, and other modern writers among ourselves, it was, he apprehends, unknown in England in that or any similar sense till comparatively a recent period. According to Mr. Wright (Chester Plays, Introduction, pp. vii., viii., while dramatic performances representing the legendary miracles attributed to the saints were properly called Miracula, Miracles, or Miracle-plays, those which were founded on Scripture subjects, and which were intended to set forth the mysteries of revelation, were distinguished by the title of Mysteria, or Mysteries. "In France," he adds, "the distinction between Miracles and Myste As has been observed, however, by Mr. Collier, the latest and best historian of the English drama, the moral-plays were enabled to keep possession of the stage so long as they did, partly by means of the approaches they had for some time been making to a more improved species of composition, "and partly because, under the form of allegorical fiction and abstract character, the writers introduced matter which covertly touched upon public events, popular prejudices, and temporary opinions."* He mentions, in particular, the moral entitled The Three Ladies of London, printed in 1584, and its continuation, The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, which appeared in 1590 (both by R. W.), as belonging to this class. INTERLUDES OF JOHN HEYWOOD. Meanwhile, long before the earliest of these dates, the ancient drama had, in other hands, assumed wholly a new form. Mr. Collier appears to consider the Interludes of John Heywood, the earliest of which must have been written before 1521, as first exhibiting the moral-play in a state of transition to the regular tragedy and comedy. "John Heywood's dramatic productions," he says, "almost form a class by themselves: they are neither miracle-plays nor moral plays, but what may be properly and strictly called interludes, a species of writing of which he has a claim to be considered the inventor, although the term interlude was applied generally to theatrical productions in the reign of Edward IV." A notion of the nature of these compositions may be collected from the plot of one of them, A Merry Play betwene the Pardoner and the Frere, the Curate and neighbour Pratte, ries was carefully preserved to the latest times. In England, as early as the fourteenth century, there appears to have been some confusion in the application of these terms, and the name of Miracles was given frequently to all kinds of Scripture plays as well as to plays of saints' miracles." This account would seem to refute the conjecture which has been hazarded, that Mysteries meant properly dramatic representations by the trades of a town, and that the word was not mysterium, but ministerium, the original of the Italian mestiere and the French métier, anciently mestier. * Hist. of Dramatic Poetry, ii. 413. printed in 1533, of which Mr. Collier gives the following account:-"A pardoner and a friar have each obtained leave of the curate to use his church,-the one for the exhibition of his relics, and the other for the delivery of a sermon-the object of both being the same, that of procuring money. The friar arrives first, and is about to commence his discourse, when the pardoner enters and disturbs him; each is desirous of being heard, and, after many vain attempts by force of lungs, they proceed to force of arms, kicking and cuffing each other unmercifully. The curate, called by the disturbance in his church, endeavours, without avail, to part the combatants; he therefore calls in neighbour Pratte to his assistance, and, while the curate seizes the friar, Pratte undertakes to deal with the pardoner, in order that they may set them in the stocks. It turns out that both the friar and the pardoner are too much for their assailants; and the latter, after a sound drubbing, are glad to come to a composition, by which the former are allowed quietly to depart."* Here, then, we have a dramatic fable, or incident at least, conducted not by allegorical personifications, but by characters of real life, which is the essential difference that distinguishes the true tragedy or comedy from the mere moral. Heywood's interludes, however, of which there are two or three more of the same description with this (besides others partaking more of the allegorical character), are all only single acts, or, more properly, scenes, and exhibit, therefore, nothing more than the mere rudiments or embryo of the regular comedy. UDALL'S RALPH ROISTER DOISTER. The earliest English comedy, properly so called, that has yet been discovered, is commonly considered to be that of Ralph Roister Doister, the production of Nicholas Udall, an eminent classical scholar in the earlier part of the sixteenth century, and one of the masters, first at Eton, and afterwards at Westminster. Its existence was unknown till a copy was discovered in 1818, which perhaps (for the title-page is gone) was not printed earlier than 1566, in which year Thomas Hackett is recorded in the register of the Stationers' Company to have had a licence for * Hist. of Dramatic Poetry, ii. 386. printing a play entitled Rauf Ruyster Duster; but the play is quoted in Thomas Wilson's Rule of Reason, first printed in 1551, so that it must have been written at least fifteen or sixteen years before.* This hypothesis would carry it back to about the same date with the earliest of Heywood's interludes; and it certainly was produced while that writer was still alive and in the height of his popularity. It may be observed that Wilson calls Udall's play an interlude, which would therefore seem to have been at this time the common name for any dramatic composition, as, indeed, it appears to have been for nearly a century preceding. The author himself, however, in his prologue, announces it as a Comedy, or Interlude, and as an imitation of the classical models of Plautus and Terence. And, in truth, both in character and in plot, Ralph Roister Doister has every right to be regarded as a true comedy, showing indeed, in its execution, the rudeness of the age, but in its plan, and in reference to the principle upon which it is constructed, as regular and as complete as any comedy in the language. It is divided into acts and scenes, which very few of the moral-plays are; and, according to Mr. Collier's estimate, the performance could not have been concluded in less time than about two hours and a half, while few of the morals would require more than about an hour for their representation.† The dramatis personæ are thirteen in all, nine male and four female; and the two principal ones at least-Ralph himself, a vain, thoughtless, blustering fellow, whose ultimately baffled pursuit of the gay and rich widow Custance forms the action of the piece; and his servant, Matthew Merrygreek, a kind of flesh and-blood representative of the Vice of the old moral-plays-are strongly discriminated, and drawn altogether with much force and spirit. The story is not very ingeniously involved, but it moves forward through its gradual development, and onwards to the catastrophe, in a sufficiently bustling, lively manner; and some of the situations, though the humour is rather farcical than comic, are very cleverly conceived and managed. The language also may be said to be on the whole, racy and characteristic, if not very polished. A few lines from a speech of one of the widow's handmaidens, Tibet Talkapace, in a conversation with her fellow-servants on the approaching marriage of their masters, may be quoted as a specimen : * See Collier, ii. 446. + See Collier, ii. 45. And I heard our Nourse speake of an husbande to-day Then shall ye see Tibet, sires, treade the mosse so trimme; GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE. Ralph Roister Doister is in every way a very superior production to Gammer Gurton's Needle, which, before the discovery of * Udall (the name is otherwise written Uvedale, Owdall, Dowdall, Woodall, and Woddell) died in 1566. He was a zealous Lutheran, and one of the most active writers for the press in his day. We have already had occasion to notice the translation brought out in 1548 under his care of Erasmus's Paraphrase of the New Testament. As an Eton master he appears to have been noted for his severity; but the most remarkable fact belonging to this part of his history is that in 1542 he was dismissed on the charge of having been concerned in a robbery, and that in a letter in his own handwriting still preserved among the Cotton MSS. he seems, to a considerable extent at least, to admit his guilt. At this time, too, there is reason to believe that he held a living in the church. The probability is that the robbery, described as being of certain images of silver and other plate belonging to the college, may have been prompted by some impulse of anti-Romanist zeal. On the establishment, at any rate, of the reformed system under Edward, Udall was made first a prebend of Windsor and soon after was presented to the rectory of Calborne in the Isle of Wight; and at last he was appointed to the head mastership of Westminster School, from which, however, and probably also from his ecclesiastical preferments, he was again ejected under Mary, soon after the middle of whose reign he died. Upon the discovery of the printed copy of Ralph Roister Doister in 1818 by the Rev. Mr. Briggs, that gentleman had a limited reprint made of it, and then presented the original copy to the library of Eton College, where he had been educated. He did not then know that the author had been one of the masters there, nor who the author was; nor did Dr. Bliss, when he soon after inserted in his new edition of Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses the quotation from the play given by Wilson, know that it was from Ralph Roister Doister. Another edition, with notes, was produced in 1821 by Mr. F. Marshall; and a third reprint by Mr. Thomas White, in his Old English Drama, in 1830. But the standard copy is now that edited for the Shakespeare Society in 1847 by Mr. William Durrant Cooper, with an elaborate Life of Udall prefixed, and occasional notes, in which Mr. Cooper states that he has largely availed himself of those accompanying the reprint of 1821. According to Mr. Cooper, the authorship of Ralph Roister Doister was first established by Mr. Collier, in his History of English Dramatic Poetry (1831), vol. ii. p. 445. |